We have entered the age of apps, and Latin America will soon enter the global IT market in a big way. Forrester Research, a technology and market research company released an annual report looking at what and how people spend money on internet technology, globally. Software - specially apps - are the largest category of spending this year.
Analysts at Forrester research are predicting that at the close of 2013, enterprises and governments around the globe will have spent about $2 trillion on internet technology, services, software, and hardware. That $2 trillion is split into five categories, including IT outsourcing and hardware maintenance, computer equipment (including PCs, tablets, servers, and other things) IT consulting and systems integration for enterprises, communications equipment, and software - which includes custom-built software, operating systems, and applications.
Apps Are Big
Software was ahead by far, with $542 billion to be spent in 2013, and within that category, applications took the largest share of any subcategory of internet technology at $234 billion dollars. TechCrunch, which parsed through the report, sees this as a bad sign for the technology world, while quoting analyst Andrew Bartels, saying that "the continued recession in Europe and slowing growth in China will offset improvements in the US, Japan, and some emerging markets."
"Software is where most of the big changes in technology are taking place," says Bartels. Software is expected to grow 3.3 percent this year and 6.2 percent next year, which, according to Bartels, "may not seem impressive," but is still stronger than any other category of technology spending. Meaning, we're in the age of apps, but part of that is because, comparatively, all other sectors of technology investment are languishing.
Other news from the Forrester report is more familiar. Tablets are continuing to outperform traditional personal computers. While on the circular breakdown, tablets are only at $21 billion worldwide, compared to $134 billion for PCs, the iPad and other tablets are growing and the personal computer is shrinking. Bartels writes that traditional PCs will only rise about three percent, "despite the launch of Windows 8 operating system," or perhaps, because of it. Meanwhile, Samsung's continually growing line up of Galaxy tablets and Microsoft's Surface are "helping to expand the tablet market, without putting much of a dent in the growth of the Apple iPad so far."
Apple's Continued Growth, And Latin America's Rise
Apple, despite worries that the company has lost some spark after the death of Steve Jobs, is and will continue to enjoy growth in the traditional computer market and especially in its iPad tablet lineup.
Along with the growth of Apple, in a larger sense, the U.S will continue to be the biggest consumer of IT for the time being.
However, Latin America is expected to grow significantly over the year and especially into 2014, as far as business and government spending on IT goods and services, going up from a negative percentage change last year to a 2.6 percent rise in 2013, followed by what Forrester believes will be a nearly 11 percent growth in internet technology spending in 2014 - the largest regional growth predicted for that year.